Migraines are often mysterious and show no real cause or trigger. They just happen, and when they do they can be painfully debilitating. If you get occasional migraines and have no idea where they come from, the cause may be the food that you're eating, or more precisely, a food allergy you may not know you have.

David Dodick, of the Mayo Clinic, notes at The New York Times that some people with mysterious and unexplained migraines may actually be suffering from mild food allergies that have gone undiagnosed. There's still research to be done, he points out, but there may be something to the suspicion that food allergies and some migraines may be related.

He uses one reader's anecdotal experience of cutting out food allergens as a means to alleviate migraines and headaches as a starting point to discuss a study in the journal Cephalalgia, which suggests that diet and migraine headaches may be more closely related than previously thought. He suggests that if you've been stricken by sudden, unexplained migraines, you may want to get tested for food allergies that may have gone undiagnosed in the past, or that aren't severe enough to cause other illness: they may explain your occasional migraines. Photo by Robbie Wagner.